Letting the Feelings Out
by Windrises
Summary: High school's about to end, so Kaorin's tempted to tell Sakaki about her crush on her. Both she and Sakaki have secret feelings to reveal.


Note: Azumanga Daioh is an anime that was done by the studio TV Tokyo and is based on a comic strip by Kiyohiko Azuma.

Sakaki was one of the most popular girls in high school. She was smart, mature, polite, and cool. However, she was not flawless. After all, nobody's perfect, but Sakaki had a particular flaw that stood out: She was rather unknowing about how certain people felt about her. She was a shy girl who didn't have the highest of opinions about herself. Pretty much everybody at school loved her, but one girl stood out with a stronger liking of Sakaki than anybody else: Kaorin (Kaori). Kaorin had gathered a fangirl crush on Sakaki and those feelings grew. Despite Kaorin's strong feelings for Sakaki, the two girls were casual friends. Sakaki had a lot of friends and Kaorin felt like she was lost among the crowd. She feared that Sakaki wouldn't notice her or appreciate her. Her feelings for Sakaki never faded away, despite seeming like a hopeless case.

High school for Sakaki, Kaorin, and the others was coming close an end. The girls were eighteen and there was less than a month of school left. Kaorin knew that she didn't have many school days with Sakaki left, so she wondered if she should tell Sakaki how she feels about her. She considered it several times, but she was too scared to do it.

Kaorin entered her classroom and sat down. Chihiro sat next to her and noticed how gloomy Kaorin looked. Chihiro said, "Hi Kaorin. You better tell me what's going on."

Kaorin asked, "What are you talking about?"

Chihiro answered, "You've clearly got something on your mind that's bumming you out."

Kaorin replied, "I don't want to talk about it."

Chihiro responded, "Come on. I'm your best friend, so you gotta share with me what you're dealing with. I wanna help you."

Kaorin sighed and said, "I'm a hopeless case."

Chihiro replied, "Nobody's a hopeless case."

Ms. Yukari, the teacher, walked in and asked, "What are you guys talking about?"

Chihiro said, "Ms. Yukari, you don't think any student's a hopeless case, right?"

Ms. Yukari burst into laughter and said, "I've met so many hopeless cases. Here, I'll show you them." She pointed to Tod, Tomo, Osaka, and Kagura. She laughed and said, "You four have no future."

Osaka smiled and said, "My dream of not having to do anything is complete."

Tomo said, "This is wicked cool. Now we can be nobodies for the rest of our lives."

Kagura said, "The three of us will rock on." The three goofy girls high-fived.

Tod gently asked, "What about me?"

Ms. Yukari pointed to her and said, "You're the biggest loser in this class."

Sakaki shyly said, "Um, is regular class going to start soon?"

Ms. Yukari had gotten so caught up in mocking her students that she had forgotten to start class. She faced her students and said, "Start doing whatever dumb crap I assigned for you to do."

Chiyo said, "But we already finished that assignment."

Ms. Yukari grabbed a stack of papers and threw them at her students. She sighed and said, "Do whatever assignment that is."

Sakaki looked at the papers and replied, "But these are your tax reports."

Ms. Yukari responded, "Then start solving my finical problems." Ms. Yukari laid her head on her desk and started napping.

Kaorin looked over at Sakaki. She admired Sakaki's cool appearance and beautiful hair. Chihiro noticed that and asked, "What are you doing?"

Kaorin sadly said, "Looking at a future that I'll never have."

Chihiro asked, "Are you talking about becoming closer with Sakaki?"

Kaorin answered, "I sure am. She's the most beautiful girl that I've ever seen and she could probably care less about me."

Chihiro patted her friend on the shoulder and said, "You can't give up without putting in effort. You need to let Sakaki know how you feel."

Kaorin replied, "I wish that I had the courage to tell Sakaki my feelings, but I don't. I'm afraid that she'll dislike me."

Chihiro said, "Kaorin, school doesn't have many days left which means you don't have many chances left." Kaorin had a sad look on her face.

A few hours later it was lunch time. Kaorin started walking up to the lunch room. She walked by Chihiro and asked, "Ready to have lunch together?"

Chihiro said, "Kaori, this is a great chance to talk to Sakaki. Have lunch with her."

Kaorin nervously said, "I'm not so sure if I can do that."

Chihiro patted her friend on the back and replied, "Be brave."

Sakaki was a big fan of cats, so she recently done some cat drawings. She sat next to Tomo, Osaka, and Kagura and said, "Hi girls." She had a shy look on her face while saying, "I finished my cat drawings. They took a lot of effort and I think that they're not bad. Would you mind if I showed you?"

Tomo put her arm around Sakaki and replied, "No offense, but we don't really want to see them."

Sakaki asked, "Why not?"

Tomo said, "They sound boring. Cute cats is such an overused concepts. We want to see weird stuff like unicorn kitties and Oogieloves."

Sakaki had a disappointed look on her face while saying, "Okay." She looked around the room. Her other friends seemed distracted with their conversations and pranks. She sat by herself and looked at her pictures. She had always had a desire to embrace her cute side, but nobody seemed to pay attention to that side of her. The students formed their own opinions of her and judged her without getting to know her. They liked her, but they didn't like her for who she was. They liked her for what they thought she was like. Sakaki felt like an outsider who wasn't truly understood by anyone. She had a desire to show the world who she was and let her feelings shine out, despite seeming like a hopeless case.

Kaorin saw that Sakaki was sitting by herself, so she figured that this would be a good time to talk to her. She felt nervousness in her body as she walked over to Sakaki. She sat next to Sakaki and gently waved.

Sakaki was used to giving people such simple and quiet greetings, so she quickly noticed it and waved back. Sakaki had thought a lot about Kaorin in the past few months. Kaorin was so shy and avoided her so much that Sakaki assumed that Kaorin only mildly cared about her. However, she had a small grain of hope in her heart that Kaorin would want to see her cat drawings. She looked at Kaorin and asked, "Would it be cool if I show you my recent drawings of felines?"

Kaorin replied, "That would be super cool."

Sakaki felt a comforting feeling in her heart while showing the pictures to Kaorin. Sakaki had drawn five different pictures. They were all super detailed and adorable. Sakaki was nervous about whether or not Kaorin thought they were any good. She tried to hide her nervousness while asking, "Do you think they're okay?"

Kaorin answered, "They're amazing."

Sakaki replied, "Come on."

Kaorin said, "They're so well drawn and I could scream over how cute they are. You're a terrific artist."

Sakaki was pleasantly surprised by how Kaorin felt about her cat drawings. She said, "Wow Kaorin, I wasn't expecting such a glowing review from you. Thank you. It means so much to me."

Kaorin replied, "No problem."

Sakaki said, "I'm not used to people feeling that way about my artwork."

Kaorin stood up and replied, "Well, people should stop being such snobs and start appreciating your beauty. You should be the dictionary definition of an artist. There should be art galleries that celebrate your work. Your work should be in museums and be placed with the Mona Lisa. You could be the next Naoko Satomi. You might even be better at art than Cesar Romero."

Sakaki put her hand on Kaorin's shoulder and said, "That's sweet of you to say, but also super confusing. What were you even talking about?"

Kaorin facepalmed and replied, "I don't know. I feel like an idiot."

Sakaki said, "Come on. You aren't stupid. You're very a very smart and cute young lady."

Kaorin asked, "Cute?" Sakaki nodded. Kaorin said, "Wow, I really like hearing that from you."

Sakaki replied, "I like hearing from you in general. It feels like it's been half a year since we last talked."

Kaorin nervously responded, "I guess it has been that long."

Sakaki said, "Then we should start talking more. We should catch up and stuff like that."

Kaorin replied, "We won't have much time for that since school's about to end."

Sakaki asked, "Then are you free tonight?"

Kaorin asked, "What do you mean?"

Sakaki said, "We could get dinner at a fast food place and talk about what we've been doing recently."

Kaorin tried to resist any type of excited fangirl screaming while saying, "Okay, that sounds like a nice time." Sakaki hugged Kaorin and started getting ready for her next class.

Kaorin ran up to Chihiro and said, "I can't believe what happened."

Chihiro asked, "What's going on?"

Kaorin said, "Sakaki asked me out."

Chihiro replied, "Oh, so she likes you back?"

Kaorin stuck her hands in the air and responded, "Don't get any ideas. She just asked me out, so that two casual friends can catch up. There's nothing romantic about it."

Chihiro replied, "There might be."

Kaorin nervously asked, "What do you mean?"

Chihiro said, "She asked you and only you to have dinner with her. It might just be a friendship thing, but I think she might of just asked you out."

Kaorin replied, "No, that couldn't be possible. It just seems impossible for Sakaki to like me."

Several hours later Sakaki and Kaorin met up at fast food restaurant. At first, Kaorin wasn't sure if she should dress fancy or not. She decided to go with a fancy green dress, but she didn't want Sakaki to think that she didn't value this event. She walked inside and saw that Sakaki was wearing a fancy black dress. It seemed like Sakaki was taking this get together seriously and Kaorin was adorably overjoyed about that. She ordered her drink and meal and sat at Sakaki's table. Kaorin said, "You look amazing."

Sakaki blushed and replied, "Thank you. You look super stylish in that dress."

Kaorin asked, "So, watcha been up to?"

Sakaki said, "Well, I got won the school race."

Kaorin replied, "Believe me, I have fond memories."

Sakaki said, "Also, I finally got the neighborhood cat to stop biting me. It was such a cute cat, but it was always attacking me, but I don't have that problem anymore. What have you been doing?"

Kaorin replied, "Oh, nothing that extremely different. I've been up to the usual stuff."

Sakaki and Kaorin spent ten minutes chatting about cats and artwork. Sakaki said, "I'm glad that you share so many of my interests and I'm happy that you agreed to go out with me."

Kaorin nervously asked, "Go out?"

Sakaki shyly said, "The cat's out of the bag. I'm afraid that I wanted more than just a friend to catch up with." She took a long pause and said, "This may sound silly, jarring, and confusing, but I have a crush on you."

Kaorin said, "What?!"

Sakaki replied, "I used to not notice you, but I got this sudden feeling that I should start paying attention to you. I don't know why those feelings started coming to me at first, but I started realizing that I was getting feelings for you. Your positivity, your shyness, and your cute demeanor was all so charming."

Kaorin responded, "Sakaki, I'm the one that has the crush. I've had a crush on you since I met you."

Sakaki raised her eyebrows and asked, "Really?"

Kaorin said, "I thought you were the most awesome and gorgeous woman I had ever seen. Your eloquence is truly something else. I can understand why you never found out how I felt. I was so shy about how I felt that I tried to avoid making conversation with you."

Sakaki smiled and replied, "I'm glad that you didn't avoid me, because you disliked me."

Kaorin held Sakaki's hand and responded, "Anybody that dislikes you doesn't understand what having a good opinion is."

Sakaki and Kaorin were both feeling super shy about the situation that they were currently in. They both had revealed a lot more and had learned about more about each other's feelings than they were expecting.

Kaorin said, "I can't believe that we've had these feelings for each other and had been hiding them. I've wasted so much time. What should we do?"

Sakaki replied, "Lets stop wasting time. We know how we feel about each other, so we can stop any kind of denial and start being happy together."

Kaorin nervously asked, "So, this is a date?"

Sakaki said, "It sure is."

Kaorin felt an extreme amount of excitement in her heart while asking, "Am I your girlfriend?"

Sakaki said, "Yes."

Kaorin got up and jumped. She said, "I feel like the happiest girl in the world."

Sakaki replied, "We're going to have lots of fun."

Kaorin responded, "This is already the most magical night of my life." Sakaki and Kaorin finished their meal and talked to each other for forty five minutes.

After dinner was over, Sakaki and Kaorin walked outside. Sakaki said, "This is a school night, so I better get home and prepare for all of the school stuff."

Kaorin replied, "Okay then. I had a wonderful time with you."

Sakaki responded, "It was one of the best times that I ever had. Lets forget about our embarrassing past and start focusing on a very bright future." She kissed Kaorin on the lips. Sakaki and Kaorin started heading home while feeling like the happiest girls in the world.


End file.
